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How to Find Pictures on Old Hard Drive? 4 Cases&11 Fixes.

Wondershare Recoverit Authors

Dec 06, 2024 • Filed to: Photo/Video/Audio Solutions • Proven solutions

Sometimes there arise certain circumstances when you are not able to access pictures from your old hard drive. Then you start applying several online techniques, but at the end of the day, you leave yourself panicked. If this is your situation, you finally hit the right spot where you will be guided step by step on how to find pictures on an old Hard Drive. It doesn't matter whether you want to find all the pictures on Hard Drive for Windows 7 or Windows 10.

Part 1. Cases of Finding Pictures on Old Hard Drive

Several reasons might prompt the question of how to find pictures on old hard drives, even if they're present or accidentally deleted. Let's explore the top 4 cases and fixes to understand this better. 

Cases Reasons Fixes
Pictures get Deleted on Hard Drive 1. Damage to the file system.
2. Hard Drive is converted from NTFS to FAT.
3. Corruption in the structure of Metadata.
4. Sudden shutdown during preview
5. You delete pictures accidentally
1. Use Recoverit Data Recovery
2. Use Recycle Bin
3. Use Command Prompt
4. Use Backup
Step-by-step Guide
Too Many Pictures of Various Formats on Hard Drive 1. Pictures are obtained from different sources.
2. The number of images is generally too large.
1. Use File Manager/Finder
2. Use command prompt/ terminal
Step-by-step Guide
Pictures are Hidden on Hard Drive 1. A file system error that prevents entries to pictures
2. An attack from a virus or malware.
3. The option of "show hidden files" has been disabled.
1. Use File Explorer
2. Use the control panel
Step-by-step Guide
Old Hard Drives are Crashed 1. Firmware corruption makes it unreadable
2. Some problems in hardware components.
3. Sudden power failure while the disk is writing.
4. Overheating damages the electronic circuit board.
5. Improper functioning of filters blocks the air intake.
1. Use Recoverit
2. Running Scan Disk CHKDSK
3. System restore in safe mode
Step-by-step Guide

Part 2. How to Find All Pictures on Old Hard Drive in 4 Cases:

There arise several situations when you lose your pictures from your hard drive or they get deleted. Before we go in further detail it is crucial to mention here that these images are not deleted permanently. Also, if they are misplaced in some folder or some subfolder it is easy to locate. The only thing you need to do is just follow the guideline that we are providing you with images and you will get your task done. These guidelines will help you find all photos on Hard Drive for Windows 7 as well as Windows 10.

Case 1: Recover and Find Photos on Hard Drive

Sometimes your photos are there in the Hard Drive but you can't open them. There also arise some cases when you can't find your photos despite knowing they are in your Hard Drive itself. Some best solutions to overcome this situation are.

Solution 1. Use Recoverit Data Recovery

Recoverit Data Recovery is a hard drive data recovery software that helps you to recover lost data as long as they are not overwritten by other data. This software works both for Windows and MAC.

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  • Recover corrupted/deleted files from the computer, USB hard drive, memory card effectively, safely, and completely.
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For this just open Wondershare Recoverit as shown below,

Now to use Recoverit you just need to follow 3 simple steps given below:

Step 1: Select the Location

To recover images on a computer, it is necessary to choose a location where you have lost them.

Here, please select a hard disk under the "Hard Disk Drives" tab or Desktop under the "Select location" tab.

Click "Start" to begin the scanning on the selected location as shown below

Select the location

Step 2: Scan the location

Recoverit will start an all-around scan. Usually, it will take a few minutes to finish the scanning. Sometimes, a few hours are required if many large-sized files are present. During the scanning process, you can also pinpoint files or stop scanning for your convenience. This process is shown in the image below:

Scan the Location

Step 3: Preview and Recover Files

This is the last step in the recovery of your photos. Recoverit allows its users to preview the recoverable files before proceeding to the final recovery step. You can select targeted files and then click the "Recover" button to retrieve your files back. Here also there are some points you need to consider.

Preview and recover

After getting a preview of the files and confirming they are what you want, you are all set to get them all back using Recoverit.

For this just directly hit on the "Recover" button to retrieve your lost photos back and choose a path to save the recovered files. One thing to consider here is, not to save the files to the hard drive where you have deleted or lost the data.

Solution 2. Use Recycle Bin

Recycle Bin stores your deleted files that can be restored easily to the location from where they were deleted. This is one of the easiest techniques to go with for finding all pictures on Hard Drive on Windows 7 and Windows 10.

Restoring files

Solution 3. Use Command Prompt

This is also one of the safe techniques to find all pictures on old Hard Drive:

To open a command prompt for Windows 7, you can open the start menu - All programs - open accessories - click command prompt shortcut. For Windows 10 click on the start button at the lower-left corner for opening the menu then choose the command prompt. You can also press Windows + X.

Recovering files

Once the processing of the given command has been finished, a new folder will be generated on the drive to store all the recovered files, which will be in the .chk format. The formats of those files can be changed and you can save them to the location where you want. The CMD attrib command is mainly used to recover even permanently deleted files from CMD.

Solution 4. Use Backup

One of the best options to recover or to find all the pictures on the Hard Drive is to go with a backup option. For this just follow simple steps:

Restoring a backup

Case 2: Too Many Pictures of Various Formats on Hard Drive

Your Hard Drive may contain many pictures of different formats. When it comes to the storage of pictures. They may be stored at different locations depending upon, where they came from. Windows itself stores images in your "Pictures" folder or the "Downloads" folder. In the case of MAC, these are usually stored in "Pictures".

For Finding Pictures:

Solution 1. Use Finder

Finder is used for quickly locating any file on your Hard Drive. To use it just click My PC in the file explore or Computer in the windows explorer. You can now go to the "downloads" or "pictures" section for your pictures. You can also enter the command kind:=picture in the search box. This will let you search all partitions on your Hard Drive for various image formats.

Finding Pictures on Hard Drive

Solution 2. Command Prompt

This command will recover all the files in the Hard Drive

searching pictures using command prompt

Case 3: Pictures are Hidden on Hard Drive

Finding hidden pictures is not an easy task as you don't know where those pictures are placed, to make this task easy for you two solutions will work for you.

Solution 1. Use File Explorer

finding hidden pictures

Solution 2. Use Control Panel

Click on appearance and personalization

Click on View

Case 4: Old Hard Drives are Crashed

This is the situation where utter care is a demand, to recover your pictures. As once your hard drive is crashed you will not able to operate properly by connecting it to your PC.

We will provide you with simple techniques to do this job for you.

Solution 1. Use Recoverit Software

If you are unable to launch your Windows computer, you can use Recoverit to create bootable media and recover data.

Step 1.  Connect a blank USB drive to the working computer. Select the drive to create a bootable media, and then click "Create" to start.

select a location

Step 2.  After creating a bootable USB flash drive, connect it to your crashed computer and restart it. Press the BIOS entry key when the first screen is displayed

Scan the location

Step 3. Now your crashed computer becomes bootable. You can choose Hard Disk Copy or Data Recovery to find and recover your pictures. (You can also check our detailed guide on how to recover data from a crashed computer.)

preview pictures

Solution 2. System Restore in Safe Mode

Step 1. Start the computer in safe mode

Step 2. Now click Start menu - All programs - Accessories - System tools - System restore

Step 3. Choose your restore point and then click on next.

Step 4. Choose the recommended restore option, if not working choose a different restore point

Step 5. Confirm settings and click next. You are done.

Solution 3. Run ScanDisk CHKDSK

Step 1. Press Windows + X and select Command prompt as an admin

select command prompt

Step 2. Now type chkdsk and click enter.

type chkdsk

Step 3. Now suppose your corrupted drive is c you can type chkdsk C:/f/r/x to fix errors and get your photos back.


Part 3. How to Prevent Pictures Not Finding on Hard Drive?

Sometimes you have pictures on your computer that you don't want to be seen by others. In these situations, the best solution is to hide them where it becomes difficult or almost impossible for others to reach

Let us discuss 5 effective strategies.

Strategy 1. Use Hidden Folders

This technique can hide your pictures from others and provide you with an option to see them whenever you want.

Strategy 2. Encrypt the Files

This is an easy and secure method to hide your pictures. Just create an encrypted zip file and you can place it anywhere you want. It can't be opened by anyone until they have the right password with them.

Strategy 3. Use Camouflage

In this process, the disguised folder is created that resembles the Recycle Bin, Control panel, and even the fonts folder. The fact with this folder is one can't be able to see the real content of this folder even after opening it. As when you open this folder inside Windows Explorer, that folder will open which corresponds to the real folder in appearance. but if you try to open the same folder through Disguise Folders, it will reveal the actual content in that folder.

Strategy 4. Use the Steganography Technique

This is one of the effective techniques to hide folders containing your pictures. It is embedding images into unsuspecting files like car images. Here when you double click container files, the picture of the car will open but internally it contains your hidden image

Strategy 5. Using File Explorer

This is a simple yet effective technique

Click on properties

Click on the second option


Conclusion:

There arise certain conditions when you are unable to find your pictures on your old Hard Drive. Although it is a difficult process in this resolute dossier a step-by-step explanation is given that helps you to find all pictures on Hard Drive.

Recoverit author

Eleanor Reed

staff Editor

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